Communion like this is the secret of the abiding "joy and peace in believing," which eminent saints like Bradford and Rutherford notoriously possessed. None were ever more humble, or more deeply convinced of their own infirmities and corruption. They would have told you that the seventh chapter of Romans precisely described their own experience. They would have endorsed every word of the "Confession" put into the mouths of true believers, in our Prayer-book Communion Service. They would have said continually, "The remembrance of our sins is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable." But they were ever looking unto Jesus, and in Him they were ever able to rejoice.--Communion like this is the secret of the splendid victories which such men as these won over sin, the world, and the fear of death. They did not sit still idly, saying, "I leave it all to Christ to do for me," but, strong in the Lord, they used the Divine nature He had implanted in them, boldly and confidently, and were "more than conquerors through Him that loved them." (Rom. viii. 37.) Like St. Paul they would have said, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Phil iv. 13.)--Ignorance of this life of communion is one among many reasons why so many in this age are hankering after the Confessional, and strange views of the "real presence" in the Lord's Supper. Such errors often spring from imperfect knowledge of Christ, and obscure views of the life of faith in a risen, living, and interceding Saviour.
Is communion with Christ like this a common thing? Alas! it is very rare indeed! The greater part of believers seem content with the barest elementary knowledge of justification by faith, and half-a-dozen other doctrines, and go doubting, limping, halting, groaning along the way to heaven, and experience little either of the sense of victory or joy. The Churches of these latter days are full of weak, powerless, and uninfluential believers, saved at last, "but so as by fire," but never shaking the world, and knowing nothing of an "abundant entrance." (1 Cor. iii. 15; 2 Pet. i. 11.) Despondency and Feeble-mind and Much-afraid, in "Pilgrim's Progress," reached the celestial city as really and truly as Valiant-for-the-truth and Greatheart. But they certainly did not reach it with the same comfort, and did not do a tenth part of the same good in the world! I fear there are many like them in these days! When things are so in the Churches, no reader can wonder that I inquire how it is with our souls. Once more I ask,--In the matter of communion with Christ, "How do we do?"
(10) Let me ask, in the tenth and last place, _whether we know anything of being ready for Christ's second coming_? That He will come again the second time is as certain as anything in the Bible. The world has not yet seen the last of Him. As surely as He went up visibly, and in the body, on the Mount of Olives, before the eyes of His disciples, so surely will He come again in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. (Acts i. 11.) He will come to raise the dead, to change the living, to reward His saints, to punish the wicked, to renew the earth, and take the curse away,--to purify the world, even as He purified the temple,--and to set up a kingdom where sin shall have no place, and holiness shall be the universal rule. The Creeds which we repeat and profess to believe, continually declare that Christ is coming again. The ancient Christians made it a part of their religion to look for His return. _Backward_ they looked to the cross and the atonement for sin, and rejoiced in Christ crucified. _Upward_ they looked to Christ at the right hand of God, and rejoiced in Christ interceding. _Forward_ they looked to the promised return of their Master, and rejoiced in the thought that they would see Him again. And we ought to do the same.